Leading Institutions and Clinical Laboratories Evaluate Respiratory Virus Test

07/10/06

Tm Bioscience has announced that more than 25 leading health care institutions and laboratories across North America, Europe, and Asia have entered its Early Access Program to assess the ID-Tag™ Respiratory Viral Panel (RVP), a test that has the potential to play a key role both in the management of patients exhibiting respiratory distress in clinical settings and in countering the pandemic threat of respiratory viruses.

“Health care institutions around the world will benefit significantly from a test that can rapidly and reliably identify patients infected with respiratory viruses. Our panel will be evaluated in a variety of prestigious high-volume health care facilities that will provide us with important feedback, ensuring our test fully addresses their needs and is marketed effectively,” says Greg Hines, president and CEO of Tm Bioscience. “These institutions will also be able to gain experience with the ID-Tag RVP, allowing them to implement the test rapidly once it completes the regulatory approval process.”

Michael Mihalov, MD, chair of pathology and director of the diagnostic molecular pathology lab at Resurrection Medical Center, one of the institutions participating in the Early Access Program, says he expects the ID-Tag™ RVP to prove advantageous in testing for various respiratory viruses quickly, economically and accurately. “Our lab has had great success with Tm Bioscience products, and we are anxious to evaluate their respiratory panel. Current respiratory viral testing is time-consuming and inconvenient for a high-volume hospital serving thousands of patients in a large metropolitan area. ID-Tag RVP will help us identify respiratory viruses more rapidly and undertake appropriate intervention, whether that is treatment or isolation,” Mihalov says.

Early Access partners include community hospitals, pediatric hospitals, reference laboratories, and public health labs, such as the Alberta Provincial Lab for Public Health (ProvLab) in Calgary, AB, a leader in the area of molecular testing for respiratory viruses.